


barrel-born bastard

by mostlyzoe



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: (i guess), Canon Compliant, Character Study, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kid Fic, Moral Ambiguity, Mother-Daughter Relationship, References to criminal activity, The Barrel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlyzoe/pseuds/mostlyzoe
Summary: I’m the type of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel.The little girl says, “Tell me what Dirtyhands looks like.”Though stories come instantly to her mother’s lips lips - street stained gossip of Brekker’s imposing figure, his dark cloak and woollen vest, his famed black gloves and crows-head cane - the woman speaks nothing of it.“Scrawny, I imagine.”Or, the one where Kaz is a role model for Barrel kids.





	barrel-born bastard

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I’m back from the writing block war and posting in a new fanspace. nice to meet you, grishaverse. enjoy :)

Crooning a musical prayer, a dirt-caked mother cups her child’s face in her hands. Grimy hands embrace the babe with impossible tenderness; filthy cloth seems to transform into silk if the woman wills it so. For the child, there is no greater magic than her mother’s ability to stretch a meal, or a rag, or a pinched penny. Grisha be damned, Barrel magic is a thing to behold. Barrel magic is survival.

This Barrel-born bastard - for she is a bastard - is named Jajka. Her mother is Suli, but Jajka has never known her father, nor does she carry enough of his portrait to recognise it in the mosaic of her own stance. The blackened sand of Kerch’s docks, stained by coal smoke and toxic dust, is the only home Jajka has ever known. At age nine, her mind is not filled with school books or playground gossip. Instead she carries with her a prolific directory of the dead. Her list of deceased friends is wider than many social circles.

The prayer finishes. Jajka settles into her mother’s arms and watches the waves bleed into ashen sand, weeping teary streaks of slimy, dissolved coal down the beach. Her mother - Hyari - works a practised hand through Jajka’s salt encrusted, windswept curls, knotted from the sea air and seeded through with minuscule grains of sand. The tender-headed Jajka whines, receiving a cuff on the ear. “Stay still.”

“Tell me a story,” wheedles Jajka, her eyes flickering upwards. Then she winces as Hyari’s fingers hit a tangle. “Ow!”  
Hyari exhales, gazing down the bridge of her nose over the top of her wire-rimmed spectacles. One lens is shattered but hasn’t yet collapsed. At twenty six, Hyari is hardly old, but life in the Barrel is a time machine. It speeds its inhabitants along a bang-up ride culminating only in miserable, early death. “Alright,” she concedes, her voice low and gravelly. “What do you want to hear?”

Jajka shimmies with glee as she thinks, though it doesn’t take long for her to decide on a subject. Smug, she finally declares, “I want to know about _Dirtyhands.”_

Hyari’s fingers still momentarily, and then she sighs. Jajka has asked about Brekker every day for the past two weeks. Ever since he’s disappeared from the Crow Club, the unofficial Dregs leader has become Jajka’s obsession. Though Hyari wishes it were simply morbid fascination, she knows better. The hunger in Jajka’s narrowed eyes cuts a rocky profile against the evening light; the more she learns, the greedier the little girl becomes.

Jajka Wilefarr wants to be the next Kaz Brekker.

“What do you want to know?” asks Hyari reluctantly, as Jajka begins to squirm again.

Jajka cocks her head. Hyari’s stomach drops, as if she has just missed a step on a staircase. She wishes she could say she didn’t recognise the cunning child in her lap, but that would be a lie. Hyari had raised the girl, had stoked her jealousy and anger, had exposed her to the hellhole of the Barrel and encouraged her greed - the same greed on which Dirtyhands thrived.

Jajka, quietly, coolly, says, “Tell me what he looks like.”

The stories come instantly to Hyari’s lips: she can recount the street stained gossip of Brekker’s imposing figure, his dark cloak and woollen vest, his famed black gloves and crows-head cane. She has heard lectures on Kaz’s glinting eyes and paper-cut smile. It would be easy to parrot conventional wisdom, but the words stick in Hyari’s throat. Instead, she says, “Scrawny, I imagine.”

Jajka’s dark eyes flash with disappointment. “Scrawny?”

“Well,” Hyari reasons, “he’s only seventeen. He’s just a child. I can’t imagine that he’s all too imposing in person.” She pauses. “Dangerous, maybe, but small.”

“Small.” Jajka tastes the word on her tongue.

“Yes,” says Hyari. “Small. He’s only a boy. Not even ten years older than you, Jaji.”

The pet name falls unreceived on Jajka’s ears. She does not want to hear about a boy. She does not want the truth. Jajka repeats her question. “Tell me what he looks like.”

Without any other filters to save her, Hyari obliges. While combing Jajka’s hair, Hyari spills the words of countless gang members, delinquents, and criminals; she spins a tapestry of violence and monstrous deeds almost too horrible to be repeated. Jajka drinks up the amorality in a way that only a nine year old can: with a hint of fear, but far too much wonder to be appropriate. Hyari’s chest flips in moral acrobatics, but she’s not nearly as appalled as she should be.

This is what the Barrel does to a family.

“The gloves,” Jajka says suddenly, whirling around and nearly pulling Hyari’s fingers off. “Why does he wear the gloves?”

This is a question to which Hyari has no answer. “No one knows,” she murmurs. “All part of the mystery, I gather.” She begins to part Jajka’s now-soft hair and readies it for plaiting. “Some say his hands are horrid and disfigured. Others say his touch can kill. Or that he refuses to leave a trace of himself anywhere, not even a fingerprint.”

“No,” Jajka interrupts. She is still frowning, but her small nose is scrunched into a determined scowl. “He’s afraid.”

“Afraid?” Hyari repeats, almost laughing. Of all responses, Hyari has not expected this. “What should Dirtyhands be afraid of?”

Jajka’s glare turns withering, but she directs it towards the water. “I don’t know,” she huffs, impatient, “but he is.”

“And how do you know that?” Hyari’s fingernails scrape against Jajka’s scalp as she rugs the plaits tight.

The girl’s tone goes cold. “Because he’s a monster,” she explains, matter-of-fact. Her voice is not yet mature enough to have lost its sugary, singsong quality, and it is at an eerie contrast with her words. “If his hands were deformed or deathly, he would advertise. The same way he shows off his limp. Don’t you agree?”

Hyari smooths down a stray lock of hair and swallows hard. “Jajka -“

“And besides, he’s not Grisha,” Jajka continues. “Someone would know if he was. He can use his hands just fine, too, and we all know it because he’s the best lock-picker in the Barrel. Probably the best in all of Kerch.” Hyari slides a strip of rag on the end of one braid, then the other. Jajka concludes her speech: “So he ought to be afraid of something.”

Hyari pats the finished braids and motions for Jajka to stand. “Up you go, Jaji. We’re off to find a place to sleep, we are.”

Jajka’s concentration breaks and she laughs. Her somber mood evaporates. “I wonder what it is!” she giggles, her voice carrying on the breeze as she entertains herself. She kicks up rocks and dances in the evening wind, twirling under her mother’s arm. “Dirtyhands’ fear. Maybe it’s dirt,” she muses as Hyari leads her away from the dock. “Or getting sick from the dirt.”

Jajka pauses, delighted. This idea has struck her fancy. “Ooh, wouldn’t that be rich!” she caws, her laugh verging on a birdlike cackle. “Kaz Brekker, afraid! Dirtyhands, fearing a little cough!”

**Author's Note:**

> I hang out and do stuff at thoughtsbubble on tumblr if you’d like to visit me. kudos and comments are also deeply appreciated. :)


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